Vintage non sports cards

[NonSportDaniel]

The fanfare around the N519 Marquis of Lorne had to do with the misconception that it was the first insert tobacco card. That notion was thoroughly and completely debunked some time ago. There's a great thread on the topic on the non-sports board.

[G1911]

The rarest are all of the cards that are unique and the only ones known. Most all of these are not popular. At least a few need to be out there to get popularity, first because the more there are the more exposure the card gets and two, only one person has a vested interest in pumping and marketing a card that is unique. The US caramel McKinley is the non-sport version of the T206 Wagner, but there are many much rarer cards. Rarest and most collectible are usually contrary descriptors.

For example, here's some unique cards. Thick cardboard, the same images as on T29 in lower quality, but with blue borders. Ad piece on thick cardboard? Card fronts from a set otherwise known glued down? Just a really shoddy card? Poster cuts? Unique items are hard to identify. This lot cost me 99 cents at auction for all of them; the only extant copies known of whatever this set was. That's century old unique cards for under 13 cents a pop. The truly rare stuff can be a ton of fun precisely because they are so tough but also unpopular or unknown because there's usually no interest in them.

[steve B]

There are lots of sets that are rare, not particularly valuable but rare.

T49s - the full checklist wasn't known until 2011.
It's a small set sort of like T51 in makeup, where there are images representing colleges. Only a few are sports.

[Vintagedeputy]

This one is rough, but it’s a hard to find SP.

[yomass]

To my knowledge, no one has finished this set. I'm still three short.

[Exhibitman]

1926 Exhibit Vaudeville. We don't even have close to a complete set checklist.